AUBURN – Clara Desjardins, a renowned local dancer who taught three generations how to tap, waltz and jitterbug, has died. She was 89.

Born in Massachusetts and raised in Auburn, Desjardins wanted to become a physical education teacher. But her parents couldn’t afford college. Instead they supported her love of dance, sending her to classes and building a studio in their Auburn home.

Desjardins studied with some of the best in the field, including Martha Graham. Graceful and patient, she became skilled in ballroom, Spanish, jazz and acrobatic-style dancing, as well as choreography.

“Before I knew it I had students and was doing recitals,” she said in a 1997 interview with the Sun Journal, shortly after her last recital.

For 60 years, Desjardins ran Clara Harnden Desjardins Dance School, one of the most popular dance schools in the area. Enrollment peaked in the 1940s and 1950s when, for 50 cents an hour, she taught 20-student classes in tap, ballet and ballroom dancing six days a week. For a dollar, she gave private lessons to both children and adults.

Desjardins’ annual recitals became a community affair, with family, friends and neighbors attending shows that often began at 7 p.m. and lasted until midnight.

“She had these beautiful, lyrical routines,” said Maureen Morison, a Waterville dance teacher.

Petite but strong, Desjardins’ passion for dance and for teaching persisted for years, continuing even through two pregnancies and knee surgery. Once, when she was pregnant with her daughter, she taught a childrens’ tap and ballet class and showed a young couple how to jitterbug just hours before going into labor. She went back to dance class less than a week after her daughter, Belinda, was born.

“Her dance studio and her dances were her life,” said Eleanor Douglas, a parent who got to know Desjardins through the Maine Dance Teachers Association.

But as the decades passed, enrollment at the school dwindled. Dance lessons began taking a backseat to sports. In the late 1990s, just shy of 80 years old, Desjardins held her last annual dance recital. It was her 60th.

Although she closed her dance studio, Desjardins remained involved with Maine’s dance community. For years she helped with meetings and other business for the Maine Dance Teachers Association.

“Dance was her life. Her life,” Morison said.

Desjardins died on Oct. 4 at the Androscoggin Hospice House in Auburn, according to family. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be sent to the Chapman House Resident’s Account, 41 Pleasant St., Auburn, ME 04210, and the Androscoggin Hospice House, 236 Stetson Road, Auburn, ME 04210. A funeral will be held Saturday at 9 a.m. at St. Philip’s Church in Auburn.